


Three Birthdays Until Dusk

by ForNought



Category: Tari Tari
Genre: F/M, Future Fic, Gen, a lot of angsting over the past, and also a lot of angsting over what could have been, pre-fic minor character death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-16
Updated: 2015-04-05
Packaged: 2018-01-12 17:36:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1193790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForNought/pseuds/ForNought
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six years after graduating from high school, things did not quite work out the way the Choir and Sometimes Badminton Club had hoped when they had their whole lives ahead of them. They are tired and unsatisfied, and perhaps Taichi is more tired and unsatisfied than the others after his fledgling sports career was blighted by injury. He can't even say he is trying to get back onto his feet when some old friends breeze into town because they missed singing and the occasional badminton fixture.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"Fuck." 

Taichi's hands had been trembling so much that he wasn't surprised that he was unable to spark the lighter. He wasn't surprised that the lighter slipped right through his fingers and skittered away towards a manhole cover that interrupted the measured geometrics of the path that ran alongside the training centre. He took a step away from the wall but found he was currently unable to stand without its support. 

He was having a bad day, that was all. That was nowhere near enough to make him cry. 

Except for how lying to himself had never worked for Taichi. The torn ACL in his left knee was just another incident in his long history of sports injuries. It was odd to think that at one time he had a promising future as a badminton player. He had made it to the Olympic games once but it was on the world stage that he sprained his ankle and lost his early round match in spectacular style. 

Some of his injuries hadn't even been sports injuries and fracturing his leg while playing with his niece at the park was just one of the times Taichi cursed his bad luck. It seemed almost immediately after recovering from that that he somehow sustained the ACL tear. And his recovery was not going so well. He was just having a bad day, that was all. Today was just one of the days his leg wasn't cooperating with him. He kept trying to tell himself all was well but he could not help feeling bad about it. His career was in tatters and even the rehab after he shattered his elbow was easier than this.

He couldn't even be bothered to bend down to pick up the lighter. It would hurt too much for something so cheap. Defeated, he jammed the cigarette back into its box and shoved it into his pocket. It was cold out, so the journey outside was wasted, but before he could move back into the centrally-heated warmth of the training centre his phone vibrated against his chest.

"Hello?"

"I'm just an eager fan calling to get an autograph from Olympic superstar Tanaka."

It was his sister, Haruka. Taichi let out a long breath, a white puff of condensation a bit less satisfactory than the cigarette he had wanted to smoke. "What do you want?"

"Well I thought you might want to know that some friends of yours have arrived." 

"Haha," he muttered humourlessly. "You can tell Rin's friends I'm not playing when I get home." 

"No, not Rin's friends. They really are friends of yours."

"Listen, I know I'm supposed to be the cool uncle, or whatever, but I need some time to myself sometimes."

"Nobody said you were cool."

"For the record nobody thinks you're cool either."

"Your friends think I'm cool. The boy keeps blushing and commenting on the furniture though. I don't know whether that affects anything."

"It doesn't," Taichi confirmed. He sighed, wondering who the friends could be. Nobody knew he lived with his sister and her family. Nobody would even want to visit him at home anyway. Aware that his sister wouldn't give away who the guests were over the phone, he finally said, "I'll be home in three quarters of an hour." 

 

#

 

"Lonely Boy!" Taichi flinched at the old nickname as he eased himself into an armchair and propped his crutches against the side, but Konatsu didn't mind that. "How has life been treating you?"

"Did you somehow miss the humiliation that took place on an international scale, Miyamoto?"

"No," Konastu grinned. "But since then, I mean, how have you been?" 

"Really fucking shitty," Taichi grumbled, bracing himself for the whack across the back of his head that his sister gave him. 

"That's too bad," Wien said in an oddly bright voice. He sounded wrong, like he was overcompensating for something. He looked wrong too and it took Taichi a few seconds too long to remember what happened to that Austrian kid. He couldn't remember the kid's name right at that moment, but he remembered how Wien loved the kid like it were his own flesh and blood. He looked tired, like when he grew that bit taller it was too fast for his body to cope and his bones ended up simply stretching too far for his skin and muscles to adapt. 

Konatsu looked odd too. Nowhere near as bad as Wien but she looked tired too. Her hair was a flyaway mess and at first glance she had dark circles under her eyes. That was what Taichi had assumed when he first hobbled into the room, but by then he realised that one of her eyes was laden down with a puffy, purplish smear that was still visible through her make-up. 

The pair before him looked weary right down to their bones as though decades of hardships had gnawed their way down to the marrow, as though they would both gladly accept the offer for a very long rest that may never have an end. 

So maybe he wasn't the only one having a bad time of things.

He needed to change the subject. 

"Why are you here?"

"Do you not want us to be here?" Wien asked. There was something about the way he said it that triggered a flare of anger in Taichi's gut. He tried to hide the fact that his hand had involuntarily closed into a fist. He tried the fact that he wanted to punch Wien in his stupid face and tell him to shut up and stop asking stupid questions. 

He hadn't done a very good job though because both of his old friends looked concerned and his sister was already sweeping around the room under the guise of bringing drinks to everyone, even though it was obvious this was stage one of her five-step damage control system. 

"Now, now, you are always welcome here. As long as you bring more of those good chocolates anyway," Haruka said thoughtfully. She set down the last drink on her tray in front of Taichi and winked at him. He had no idea what the hell that was supposed to mean but he at least felt grateful to her. She straightened up and continued, "Then again too many of those chocolates will ruin my figure."

"Oh, stop it you, you have an amazing body," Konatsu said, scandalised. 

"Only because I work out and try not to eat chocolate."

"But you don't even look like you've had a baby! Do you still play badminton?"

"Sometimes, if Taichi or Motoharu ever feel like playing with me."

Taichi tried to stop listening. Haruka was lying because every other Thursday evening she went out to play badminton with a few friends she played with in school. She was a brilliant badminton player, she was the whole reason Taichi played in the first place, but she was wasting her talent. She could have gone on to have a proper career playing better than he could ever have hoped for, but suddenly she decided to stop and within the blink of an eye she was married to a man with sparkly eyes and a penchant for photography. 

It was strange because badminton was something Haruka was so passionate about but she did not seem to resent Motoharu for saddling her with a kid and a mortgage. She didn't seem to mind that she had other responsibilities and the sport that defined her youth was now just a casual hobby.

As much as he wanted to, Taichi couldn't hate Motoharu either because he made Haruka happy, and he was a good father to Rin, and he didn't mind that Taichi was a broken free-loader who was hanging around their house. 

Sometimes though, just sometimes, Taichi wondered whether it was him that Haruka resented. He'd had a real shot at making it as a great player of badminton and his heart hadn't been side-tracked by something that gradually started to matter more. He had been focused as could be on improving and beating opponents, but silly injury after silly injury stacked up and he couldn't play anymore. He didn't even want to leave the house these days and the only reason he went to his physiotherapy sessions was because Haruka's lips thinned and her brows creased on the days when he skipped.

"Cheer up, it might never happen," Wien said softly. Konatsu and Haruka didn't seem to hear, trapped in a cycle of compliments, so Taichi finally looked up at him and tried not to look so miserable. It only made his face hurt more though. Louder this time, Wien said, "Do you want to show me what the garden looks like?"

Haruka started to say something about how the garden honestly was not very much but Konatsu placed her hand on her shoulder and asked to see some pictures of Rin because she finally wanted to be able to put a face to the name. It was a lie, of course, but it worked. Taichi had barely spoken to anybody from the Choir and Sometimes Badminton Club, especially not after things with Sawa dissolved, so there was no way that Konatsu had really already known that Taichi had a niece who was perhaps the only person who didn't pity him. 

Haruka was frowning but she immediately went about digging out her photo album to shoe Konatsu. Taichi sighed and closed his eyes against the presence of everybody else as he struggled to heave himself out of the armchair. 

His legs buckled just as he was almost standing and his face flooded with heat. It was stupid. He was stupid. 

Arms were under his armpits and something solid was pushing against his head. He opened his eyes and found that he was pressed against Wien, staring right at the hideous paisley shirt he had decided to wear for some reason. Taichi looked up, expecting to see Wien grinning goofily down at him as though he was being anything close to helpful. He wasn't, though. He was peering over at Konatsu and Haruka who were absorbed in the photo album. 

Shame was a virus that had embedded itself into every one of Taichi's cells so there was no way he wouldn't have felt embarrassed in this situation, but they were all offering some form of privacy. 

Clinging to Wien, the stupid, ugly paisley cotton of his shirt bunching up in Taichi's hands, he managed to get to his feet. He just barely balanced on his own as Wien reached over to hand Taichi his crutches.

Once outside, Taichi clamped his right crutch between his body and his arm as he searched through his pockets for his carton of cigarettes. It was still difficult to use only one hand to extract a cigarette from the pack but it was all he could do. He couldn't hope to stay balanced and use both his hands because these days he was always off-balance. He wasn't just suffering from bout after bout of inconvenient injury but he couldn't even stand because his brain or his body didn't seem to want him to. 

After a second search about his person he remembered that he didn't have a lighter. He had forgotten that he had dropped his last lighter earlier. He glanced over to Wien who was poking at a wilting bush and asked, "You got a light?"

"Hmm?" He threw a look over his shoulder and then slowly stood.

"Do you have a lighter?" Taichi repeated from around the cigarette. 

"Oh, right," Wien muttered. He put his hand in his pocket and walked up to Taichi and didn't stop until mere inches separated them. He raised one hand and cupped it around the cigarette. And then yanked it from between Taichi's lips and threw it away as hard as he could. It didn't go very far but Wien obviously achieved his objective of being an annoying idiot.

"What the hell is your fucking problem?"

"Ah, smoking is bad for you." 

"So fucking what? Idiot." 

Wien smiled a little sadly and pushed his hands deep into his pockets before he turned face-on to Taichi. He said, "I don't want you to die."

That threw Taichi off his rhythm. 

"I'm not going to die."

"Jan didn't think he was going to die either."

That was the kid's name. Jan. Taichi felt sorry for Wien, then angry at him for trying to draw a comparison. Then he wasn't quite sure what to feel so he settled for saying, "You should pick that up. If Rin finds that, there will be hell to pay."

"Of course," Wien muttered before bowing awkwardly and scurrying over to pick up the cigarette. Taichi watched as he slid it into his pocket, but then he remembered that he had the rest of the pack in his pocket anyway. Wien returned to innocuously standing next to Taichi. This was already getting suspicious. "So, that Rin sounds boisterous. in the cute way. You know. How old is she?"

"Almost five."

"Have you ever sung to her?"

"No."

"No?"

"No."

"That's a shame. Would you sing to me?"

"Absolutely not."

"That's a shame," Wien said sombrely.

He was just as weird as he had ever been and despite how he was grating on Taichi's nerves, it was a welcome familiarity. He commented on all of the birds he could hear and the rustling that could have been a squirrel. He mentioned he hadn't been to the sea in a while. He hummed a tune, a tune that Taichi would never forget, for better or for worse, and then hesitated half-way through. 

"I can't remember how the next bit went. Do you know?"

"No idea."

"Are you sure? It was sort of like la la-la la-la la-la, and then it went la-la-la-la, or something."

Wien was not only painfully flat, but he was not even humming the right melody. He was also doing that on purpose and Taichi was proud of how that wasn't enough to goad him into correcting him. "I honestly have no idea. 

"Alright then. I'll ask Konatsu later."

"You do that."

This time, Wien didn't try to fill the silence with mindless drivel about birds and the seaside, or annoying humming. He simply stood as though this was all he ever did and that annoyed Taichi most of all. They had been best friends in school, for the final year of high school, and even if they didn't manage to talk every moment they were together, it felt a lot less awkward than this. Though Wien looked comfortable with it all. It might just have been that Taichi was the only one facing any sort of discomfort here and that befuddled him. 

The backdoor opened and Konatsu popped her head out.

"Ah, you two look as though you are enjoying yourselves."

Clearly Konatsu and Wien were in on something together and their dedication to being ignorant of everything happening around them was laudable. 

"Yes, I am having a wonderful time here with my old friend." 

"That's good. That's great."

Taichi needed a cigarette and having one snatched from his mouth wouldn't be enough to put off the urge this time. Except the second he had the box in his hand it was smacked to the ground by Konatsu's surprisingly sharp hand.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me. What did you do that for?"

"Smoking will damage your vocal cords," she said as though it were the most simple thing in the world. 

"It's a good job that I don't care about my vocal cords then."

"But you'll ruin that great voice of yours. You are a very precious, very irreplaceable member of the Choir and Sometimes Badminton Club. "

"Of course, why didn't I think of that?"

"Exactly," Konatsu said, nodding seriously. "It would be kind of embarrassing if you sounded terrible for our reunion."

It took a moment for the words to sink in, but then Konatsu and Wien were either side of him and smiling in a way that somehow emphasised how tired they looked. Obviously there was an ulterior motive. Taichi hadn't wanted visitors at all and having them turn out to be visitors who were trying to drag him back to a firmly shut chapter of his life made anger flare above the constant of irritation he had been feeling all day. 

"I think it would be a good idea if you two left, don't you."


	2. Chapter 2

Konatsu hummed as she hugged her pillow tighter. It was already morning but she could have done with another few hours of sleep. However she didn't need to go to work and that was a small mercy. She didn't have to be awake for work, but there was some other reason she was supposed to be awake but she could not quite remember why.

Without looking she reached for her phone and switched off the alarm and attempted to nestle back within the covers and fall back into a satisfying snooze.

That lasted all of about thirty seven seconds, and then her shoulder was shaken.

"Good morning, Konatsu," Wien said cheerily.

"Go away," she growled into her pillow.

"It's time to wake up."

"It's time for more sleep," Konatsu countered confidently.

"Get up."

Wien's fingertip was a gentle pressure on her cheek but it was enough for her to give up on trying to sleep. He had already pulled her into a verbal exchange and for Konatsu that was tantamount to getting her out of bed and into the shower already. So she leaned up and properly looked at Wein. For some bizarre reason the man was wearing a garish technicoloured monstrosity which had tie-dyed sleeves and right in the middle of Wein's chest was an ugly orange fish with bulbous eyes.

"That's the ugliest T-shirt I have ever seen," Konatsu, grumbled, burying her face in her pillow and desperately trying to squeeze the image of the neon spikes and swirls out of her mind.

"This doesn't belong to me. Actually it is your brother's."

"Why are you wearing Makoto's T-shirt?"

"Hmm," Wien finally sad after a long pause. The hesitation made Konatsu lean up to see why it was taking him so long to at least make something up.

"Please tell me you didn't have sex with my brother."

Wien had the decency to look embarrassed as he protested weakly.

"No. No I didn't. I was here all night like you told me to be."

"Really?"

There was some hesitation but Wien eventually said, "Absolutely. All night."

"I sleep naked, you know."

"I know. Several times, I tried to tuck you in but you kept leaping out from under the covers and shaking your breasts at me."

"You're joking, right?"

"Unfortunately not. They are quite nice though. For breasts. I think," Wien said awkwardly. His obvious discomfort and pink cheeks did nothing to deter him from what was quite obviously a stupid thing to begin, let alone continue to say.

"That means nothing coming from you."

"Really?"

"Really. I don't know why you're surprised. Anyway. Are we going to stay here flapping our gums all morning or did you forget that we had plans this morning."

Wien belatedly shielded his eyes with one hand as Konatsu threw off the covers and leapt out of bed. Well, Konatsu needed to do something to distract him from making a logical retort, probably related to how she was not anywhere near even being awake despite their plans.

 

 

 Konatsu stirred her drink until she was churning up the pale liquid and the ice until it was slopping over the sides of the glass and washing over the condensation. Wien leaned across the table with a handful of napkins to mop up the spillage.

She watched interestedly as he somehow managed to spread the moisture around without really clearing anything up. Maybe it was the napkins, maybe Wien was simply clumsy, but it was a feat that held her attention.

"Say, Wien," Konatsu began, partially wondering whether the action that held her attention would distract Wien from the conversation enough for it to remain casual.

"Yes?"

"In a hypothetical situation, say you were in a relationship with someone and you were happy, but things stopped feeling right. Say this other person started saying things that made you wonder whether things were well. Like maybe they didn't sound entirely... mentally sound, and you started to worry for both their safety and your own."

Konatsu felt as though her tone had been casual but Wien wasn't quite looking at her when he made his reply, as though he wasn't sure he should, or even could, look at her. She had been on the receiving end of this treatment before though, and she knew this was not the casual and disaffected atmosphere she had been going for.

"That is quite the hypothetical situation."

"Mmm. Maybe."

"Is this something that is happening now?"

"Who knows. It's just something that suddenly came to me."

"Right now I am worrying for you. Does that count?"

"No, that doesn't count. This is hypothetical, remember? No need to worry about me."

"Alright then. I won't worry. But I wouldn't know anything about that, so I couldn't possibly comment."

Konatsu sipped through her straw, keeping her eyes on the man across the table from her. She swallowed her bitter lemon drink but her throat still felt dry. "So you wouldn't do anything?"

"I don't know. I don't think anybody would know unless they were in that situation."

"Diplomatic."

Wien didn't say anything to that, but he frowned a lot until Konatsu scraped her chair back loudly and leapt from the seat. He twisted around to see what Konatsu was pointing at and looked relieved at Sawa's arrival.

"Is it just you or are you hiding him somewhere?" Konatsu asked, squinting at Sawa's bag.

"Just me. I thought it best to leave him behind for today."

"Why?"

Konatsu remained standing as Sawa sat down at the seat between her and Wien around the little table.

"He's too young for your bad influence."

"Bad influence?" Konatsu repeated, scandalised. She looked to Wien for some sign of solidarity, perhaps a shocked expression or even a statement in her defence. What she got was a Wien rubbing the back of his neck and commenting on the weather.

"He needed a day with his grandparents anyway," Sawa reasoned.

"But what am I going to do now? I got myself prepared to pinch some adorably chubby cheeks. Sawa, you are going to have to volunteer your own face to make up for it."


End file.
